How to junk a car in California

You’ve got that old car sitting out in the driveway or jammed into your garage. Every day you walk by it and think – wow, I wish that car was out of here. Perhaps the tags are long since expired and it hasn’t passed a smog test since Ronald Reagan was president. You may have kept it with the hopes of restoring it one day, or maybe just out of nostalgia. You tried selling it once but since the old thing blew out white smoke like a factory when it was running, no one wanted it. Now you just want to get rid of it without the hassles.

Sound about right?

While you can certainly make arrangements for someone to come and tow your car away for you, did you know that the Prostate Cancer Awareness Project can actually make great use of your old car, it won’t cost you anything and you’ll get up to a $500 tax deduction?

Here’s how it worksYou call us at 1-888-885-6710. One of our operators will take down your information and will dispatch one of our recycling companies to come out and pick up the car. You hand them the keys (if you have them) and the pink slip (California Certificate of Title) and they’ll give you a temporary receipt for the car and tow it away.

After we receive notice from the recycling company that they’ve picked up your car, we update our system and within a few days mail out a more detailed receipt, thanking you for the donation. You can use this receipt (or the temporary receipt) to aid you in claiming up to a $500 tax deduction.

What happens to my car? Most of these types of cars are taken to a vehicle dismantling facilities where they are picked through for usable parts that can be resold or re-manufactured. To further prepare the vehicle for recycling, other items like batteries, tires and gas tanks are removed. All engine fluids are properly drained, stored and recycled, as well as refrigerant gases from air conditioners. Once these have been removed, the remainder of the car can be flattened, for space conserving reasons, and delivered to a scrap dealer.

The flattened crushed automobiles arrive where they are weighed and unloaded. Next, they enter a shredding process where the remaining material is separated into three streams: iron and steel, nonferrous metal and non-metallic scrap. The iron and steel, both of which are highly recyclable, are magnetically separated from the other materials and recycled. Non-magnetic metals then can be forced to act magnetically by inducing electric currents known as “eddy currents.”

The remaining non-metallic scrap, known as “shredder residue” or “fluff”, is sent to landfills. This shredder residue typically consists of a mix of materials including polyurethane foams, polymers, metal oxides, glass and dirt.

So how does the Prostate Cancer Awareness Project benefit? The recycling companies pay the Prostate Cancer Awareness Project (PCAP) a dollar amount based on the value of scrap at that time, which can vary throughout the year based on market conditions. PCAP then uses that money to host awareness events throughout the country, spreading the word about how important early testing is for men.

So there you have it. You get rid of that old car the right way, get a nice little tax break, PCAP gets enough money to keep spreading the word about early testing for prostate cancer and hopefully saves more than a few lives in the process.

All it takes is a single phone call from you. Just give us a call and we’ll make it happen.1-888-885-6710